Whether the Knowledge of God Is the Cause of Things?
Objection 1: It seems that the knowledge of God is not the cause of
things. For Origen says, on Rom. 8:30, "Whom He called, them He also
justified," etc.: "A thing will happen not because God knows it as
future; but because it is future, it is on that account known by God,
before it exists."
Obj. 2: Further, given the cause, the effect follows. But the
knowledge of God is eternal. Therefore if the knowledge of God is
the cause of things created, it seems that creatures are eternal.
Obj. 3: Further, "The thing known is prior to knowledge, and is
its measure," as the Philosopher says (Metaph. x). But what is
posterior and measured cannot be a cause. Therefore the knowledge
of God is not the cause of things.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Trin. xv), "Not because they are,
does God know all creatures spiritual and temporal, but because He
knows them, therefore they are."
_I answer that,_ The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the
knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the
artificer is to things made by his art. Now the knowledge of the
artificer is the cause of the things made by his art from the fact
that the artificer works by his intellect. Hence the form of the
intellect must be the principle of action; as heat is the principle of
heating. Nevertheless, we must observe that a natural form, being a
form that remains in that to which it gives existence, denotes a
principle of action according only as it has an inclination to an
effect; and likewise, the intelligible form does not denote a
principle of action in so far as it resides in the one who understands
unless there is added to it the inclination to an effect, which
inclination is through the will. For since the intelligible form has a
relation to opposite things (inasmuch as the same knowledge relates to
opposites), it would not produce a determinate effect unless it were
determined to one thing by the appetite, as the Philosopher says
(Metaph. ix). Now it is manifest that God causes things by His
intellect, since His being is His act of understanding; and hence His
knowledge must be the cause of things, in so far as His will is joined
to it. Hence the knowledge of God as the cause of things is usually
called the "knowledge of approbation."
Reply Obj. 1: Origen spoke in reference to that aspect of knowledge
to which the idea of causality does not belong unless the will is
joined to it, as is said above.
But when he says the reason why God foreknows some things is because
they are future, this must be understood according to the cause of
consequence, and not according to the cause of essence. For if things
are in the future, it follows that God knows them; but not that the
futurity of things is the cause why God knows them.
Reply Obj. 2: The knowledge of God is the cause of things according
as things are in His knowledge. Now that things should be eternal was
not in the knowledge of God; hence although the knowledge of God is
eternal, it does not follow that creatures are eternal.
Reply Obj. 3: Natural things are midway between the knowledge of God
and our knowledge: for we receive knowledge from natural things, of
which God is the cause by His knowledge. Hence, as the natural
objects of knowledge are prior to our knowledge, and are its measure,
so, the knowledge of God is prior to natural things, and is the
measure of them; as, for instance, a house is midway between the
knowledge of the builder who made it, and the knowledge of the one
who gathers his knowledge of the house from the house already built.
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